The Bloody Sunday Inquiry

BY FERN LANE


Some of the many inconsistencies in the various statements provided by British soldiers about the events of Bloody Sunday were exposed during the examination of Colonel Ted Overbury, a former British Army legal officer, at the Saville inquiry in London last Thursday.

Overbury, who had been assigned to "cross-check" a number of statements provided by soldiers, was questioned by Anthony Gifford QC on the statements of three soldiers in particular, identified only as numbers 15, 40 and 134, and the discrepancies between the initial statements they provided in the days after Bloody Sunday and those they had given to Overbury some two weeks later.

In his initial statement, Soldier 15, who had been observing from the shirt factory in Sackville Street, said that he had seen a Paratrooper watching two men at the barricade at Rossville Street. "The two men suddenly jumped up and started running towards an open door... The rear man stopped suddenly and turned to look at the soldier, as the soldier brought his SLR into the aim position. The man turned and started running faster towards the open door. I then saw the soldier fire one round in the direction of the fleeing man. The man dropped to the ground. He fell in the doorway."

Lord Gifford asked Overbury whether "it would have struck you that what he was describing was something which seemed like an illegal shooting of a man running away who had been throwing stones?" Overbury responded that he did not think "that that was a consideration that I had to take".

In a subsequent statement, given to Overbury on 16 February, Soldier 15 claimed: "When the man turned he stopped and faced the soldier I referred to. He then raised his right arm to shoulder height pointing towards the soldier. I could not see at that distance whether he had anything in his hand."

The adjustment, Lord Gifford suggested to Overbury, "allows for the possibility of justifying the shooting, if he had had something in that hand".

Similarly, the account of Soldier 40 changed after he was seen by Colonel Overbury. His first statement said that he saw a paratrooper fire a shot along the Rossville Flats: "I saw a man, who was standing with his back to me waving his arms, suddenly leap in the air and land on his back about 3 to 6 feet away from where he had been standing." His statement to Overbury, however, claimed that he "saw a man who was facing the rifleman and holding his arms above his shoulders with his fists clenched. I could not say whether he was holding anything. I heard the paratrooper fire his rifle and I saw the man fall backwards."

Lord Gifford enquired whether Colonel Overbury had "pointed out to this soldier that his first statement was evidence of an illegal shooting and he might want to reflect on it?" "No sir," replied Overbury.

The inquiry then heard how Soldier 134's initial statement had changed after he had spoken to Overbury in a way that threw doubt on the identity of a man he had seen shot and fall to the ground.

Lord Gifford said: "There seems to be a common thread between these three statements. Each of them give evidence of an illegal shooting and each of them, in your hands, modify their accounts quite substantially. In each of these three cases we have seen that the statements appear to show innocent people being shot for no reason.

"Is that why you were being asked to interview them?" he asked Overbury; "Was it to try and put a spin on some evidence which was otherwise potentially damaging to the Army?" Overbury replied that he could not recall why he had been asked to interview the soldiers.

Earlier, Overbury had also been questioned by Christopher Clark QC, Counsel to the Inquiry, about the discrepancies in the accounts of Soldiers V and F, both of whom significantly modified their first statements.

Clark pointed out that in Soldier F's statement to Widgery, someone had written, during the hearings, "Many discrepancies from this original statement. Can you spin it out until 1pm?" Overbury said he did not know who had written the comment and had no recollection of the process, in which, Mr Clark said, "it looks as if somebody had alerted themselves to the grave inconsistencies between the original statement and the statement given to you, and endeavoured to ensure that F's evidence did not finish until after the lunch adjournment so that a decision could be made about what should be put in evidence about those differences".

The inquiry also heard how Colonel Overbury intervened when Soldier V - responsible for the death of Jack Duddy - admitted in his initial interview with a Treasury solicitor, Mr Heritage, that he could not "honestly" say that he had seen anything in his hand. Heritage, believing that the soldier was incriminating himself, was about to caution him and was stopped from doing so by Overbury.

Overbury told the inquiry he had stopped the interview so that he could obtain further legal advice. In his subsequent evidence, among a number of other inconsistencies, Soldier V claimed that he had seen a man throw a bottle containing a fuse and had opened fire on him.

Barry MacDonald QC, for the families, suggested that it was clear Soldier V "had made an admission which was, at least arguably, tantamount to an admission of murder" but that this "problem" had been "solved" by the time he gave evidence to the Widgery inquiry.